Most examples that critics cited as apologies show the president was imploring both the United States and its partners to build better relations, after what he argued were years of faulty Bush administration policies with allies and foes alike.
In February, Obama apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book at a U.S. military base.
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ROMNEY: "His trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and also put our security at greater risk."
THE FACTS: If Republicans and Democrats can't reach a budget agreement by year's end, a series of automatic cuts would be triggered and beginning in 2013 there would be widespread cuts to government programs that would hit the Pentagon especially hard. But these automatic cuts — called a sequester — are the result of a bipartisan agreement that Romney's running mate, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, helped steer through Congress last year. Romney and Ryan have both vowed to insulate the Pentagon from these cuts if elected. And they've both lately been calling them Obama's cuts — even though they're not exclusively Obama's doing.
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ROMNEY: "President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet."
THE FACTS: Really?
Yes, pretty much.
In a June 2008 speech marking his victory in the Democratic primaries, Obama said generations from now, "we will be able to look back and tell our children that ... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
Obama backed a climate-change bill that passed the House in 2009. A similar bill died in Senate in 2010. Opinion is mixed whether he worked hard to get it passed.
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Associated Press writers Jack Gillum, Andrew Taylor, Stephen Braun, Matthew Daly, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Stephen Ohlemacher and Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at claims made in political campaigns and how well they adhere to the facts.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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